Literacy by way of sport-comic.
Have you ever suspected that you are a pod person, an extraterrestrial, chlorophyll-intensive replacement for the real you? Last Wednesday night, four things occurred that had me racing for verification of my identity. First, the Red Sox were playing at Fenway with a chance to clinch their first postseason berth in four years. Second, the graduate school in which "I" am enrolled had discount tickets. Third, the first thirty thousand fans in attendance received a free comic book featuring Red Sox players. All of this sounds irresistible to "me," even though I'm not into comic books like I used to be. (I've never forgiven DC for letting someone other than Bruce Wayne even temporarily pass himself off as Batman.) It's the fourth thing that happened Wednesday that's given me pause: I didn't go to that game.

Hopefully the real me is embroiled in some clandestine romance with Nicole Kidman, although I think it likelier that he's spouting gibberish, ah, but rhyming gibberish, in Kenmore Square while the generous and guilty deposit change into an empty Dunkin' Donuts cup at his feet. Until he returns, I can at least make up for my neglect of my alleged interests last Wednesday by talking about the comic book, kindly supplied by my friend Heather, who was at the game. The comic's sponsored by Red Sox shortstop Nomar Garciaparra's Nomar5 fund, and its purpose is to promote literacy. Teammates Manny Ramirez, Johnny Damon, and Pedro Martinez round out the major roster in the story, while former Sox great Johnny Pesky, commentator Sean McDonough, and Nomar's Uncle Victor all make cameos.

BA-DOOM!
I'll try not to dwell long on the comic book as a comic book. It's a freebie, and a well-intentioned one, and I'm grateful for a souvenir of an enjoyable season. Having said that, the art is, to be kind, a little stiff. The player's faces look suspiciously like clip art, and there's lots of "BLAM" and "BA-DOOM" without any real sense of motion. (Exception: Nomar fouling a meteor off his foot with an atomic bat on page sixteen. Somehow that works for me.) Nomar appears considerably beefier here than he is in real life, and in real life he's a well-conditioned athlete. But he's a shortstop, not a WWF inflatable meat puppet. Then again, comic books are hardly renowned for their fidelity to the human form; maybe Nomar saw an opportunity to impress fiancée Mia Hamm. And he did pay for the comic book as a gift to juvenile fans. And if I say anything too disparaging about Nomar Scattagoric writer Missie will strew my reeking entrails all over the Eastern seaboard.

The story's better than the art, and good enough for the kids. Meteors that turn into giant, walking rock creatures are falling to Earth. The army has determined that the best possible defense against these igneous invaders is "the natural instincts of a baseball player, enhanced by modern defense technology." So Nomar, Manny, Johnny, and Pedro are equipped with atomic bats and jet packs to save the day from the, ahem, green monsters. There is a little easy humor here, although the writers missed the chance to show thirty meteors getting through the line of defense will Nomar tightened his batting gloves between swings. (Put down the pitchfork, Missie, I think Nomar's great, too. I kid because I care.) Pedro even gets to crack a knuckleball joke. There's no such thing as a bad knuckleball joke, no matter how old. Of course, if you were really looking for hitters to fight the good fight, it makes no sense that Pedro would be part of the mix. But that's nitpicking, isn't it?

Super Slugger powers activate!
As long as I'm nitpicking, though, I will confess that I was a little bummed that all of the Red Sox stars got the same equipment and basically did the same thing. Wouldn't it have been neat if they each had a particular, appropriate super power? Whether you think so or not, I'm about to match each of the aforementioned Red Sox to the comic book character he most resembles anyway, so there.

NOMAR GARCIAPARRA:
Former teammate Mo Vaughn's already spotted me this one; Nomar is a lot like Spider-Man. He's not a pure embodiment of brawn, like the Thing or the Hulk, but he's still got superhuman strength. He's not a pure speedster, like the Flash or Quicksilver, but he's got superhuman quickness. Finally, when he's at his best, Nomar brings more freakish angles to the game than any player I know: the impossible throws from deep in the hole against his body, the line drives into odd parts of the park on pitches he shouldn't be able to reach, much less hit with authority. Freakish angles have always been sort of a staple of Spider-Man art as I remember it. Mo was wrong to leave Boston, but he was right about Nomar being similar to Spider-Man.

MANNY RAMIREZ:
This is a tough match, because the outstanding attributes of Manny's game and persona aren't often bundled together in comic book characters. His tremendous strength is common enough. But then there's his under-rated intelligence at the plate, and also a weird obtuse tranquility that occasionally leads him to inadvertently cause problems in the clubhouse. Most of the brawny folk in comic books lack Manny's admittedly narrow genius, as well as his apparent indifference to everything outside the batter's box. My choice, after much deliberation: Manny is Galactus. Think about it. Galactus is aloof and anti-heroish, but not ultimately evil. He's not often thought of as a brain, but who designed those gadgets he uses to make planets more digestible? You can't just order those out of Martha Stewart Living. Finally, assuming he could fit into Fenway Park, Galactus is the only comic book character who could hit a ball as far to the opposite field as Manny can.

JOHNNY DAMON:
This is pretty easy. Damon's main skill is his speed, so he's most like the Flash. Speed doesn't entirely explain one intriguing aspect of Johnny's game, though. Whenever he dives for a fly ball and comes up short, the ball never gets behind him. At least, I've never seen it happen, and I watch more Red Sox baseball than is good for me. Even great outfielders like Andruw Jones let the ball get behind them once in a blue moon when they dive. So Damon's the Flash, but he's the Flash with maybe a little latent psychokinesis thrown in.

PEDRO MARTINEZ:
First, an aside. It has become fashionable among certain sectors of Red Sox fandom, probably only a small but vocal minority, to express dissatisfaction with Pedro because he doesn't pitch nine innings or he won't talk to the media or he's arrogant and greedy or some such crap. Listen, Pedro was very media friendly when he first came to town, but Boston is a bitter, bitter place when it comes to baseball, or more precisely to its baseball writers. True, Pedro has grown surly and remote. While I regret the change, however, I can't in good conscience blame him for it. It is also true he is no longer the virtually invincible ace he was in 1999 and 2000. But what he did in game five of the divisional series in Cleveland in 1999 was the damnedest thing I've ever seen a Red Sox player do, and maybe the damnedest thing I've ever seen any baseball player do, up to and including Barry Bonds. Red Sox fans have long memories, so long as the memories are bad. Lay off Pedro already, especially if you've got a column for the Globe and you've already milked the Curse of the Bambino for more than it's worth.

Okay, off the soapbox, and back to our regularly scheduled exercise of dubious worth. Pedro, like Manny, is an unusual mix of talents, and consequently hard to find a match for even in the fantastic world of comic books. He's a chameleon. In his prime he looked like Sandy Koufax, possessed of two absolutely devastating pitches. Now he looks more like Greg Maddux circa 1995, lacking the searing fastball he once had but still overmatching most hitters because of his astounding intelligence and pitch location. The other night in Oakland, he looked like former Sox great Luis Tiant, always in trouble but relying on guts and aura to deny the other team the hit it really needs. Because he can look like so many different great pitchers as the need arises, I submit that Pedro is most like an obscure DC Comics character named Duplicate Boy. Duplicate Boy was a member of the Heroes of Lallor, rarely seen allies of the Legion of Superheroes. Duplicate Boy could, guess what, duplicate the powers of any other superhuman in the universe. Handy, if by handy you mean unpredictable and nearly invincible, as Pedro not infrequently is.